Robert J. Shiller, a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at Yale University and the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index of US house prices. He is the author of Irrational Exuberance, the third edition of which was published in January 2015, and, most recently, Phishing for P…read more

The Coming Anti-National Revolution

NEW HAVEN – For the past several centuries, the world has experienced a sequence of intellectual revolutions against oppression of one sort or another. These revolutions operate in the minds of humans and are spread – eventually to most of the world – not by war (which tends to involve multiple causes), but by language and communications technology. Ultimately, the ideas they advance – unlike the causes of war – become noncontroversial.

I think the next such revolution, likely sometime in the twenty-first century, will challenge the economic implications of the nation-state. It will focus on the injustice that follows from the fact that, entirely by chance, some are born in poor countries and others in rich countries. As more people work for multinational firms and meet and get to know more people from other countries, our sense of justice is being affected.

This is hardly unprecedented. In his book 1688: The First Modern Revolution, the historian Steven Pincus argues convincingly that the so-called “Glorious Revolution” is best thought of not in terms of the overthrow of a Catholic king by parliamentarians in England, but as the beginning of a worldwide revolution in justice. Don’t think battlefields. Think, instead, of the coffeehouses with free, shared newspapers that became popular around then – places for complex communications. Even as it happened, the Glorious Revolution clearly marked the beginning of a worldwide appreciation of the legitimacy of groups that do not share the “ideological unity” demanded by a strong king.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, a huge bestseller in the Thirteen Colonies when it was published in January 1776, marked another such revolution, which was not identical with the Revolutionary War against Britain that began later that year (and had multiple causes). The reach of Common Sense is immeasurable, because it wasn’t just sold but was also read aloud at churches and meetings. The idea that hereditary monarchs were somehow spiritually superior to the rest of us was decisively rejected. Most of the world today, including Britain, agrees.

The same could be said of the gradual abolition of slavery, which was mostly achieved not by war, but by an emerging popular recognition of its cruelty and injustice. The 1848 uprisings around Europe were substantially a protest against voting laws that limited voting to only a minority of men: property holders or aristocrats. Women’s suffrage followed soon after. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we have seen civil rights extended to racial and sexual minorities.

All of the past “justice revolutions” have stemmed from improved communications. Oppression thrives on distance, on not actually meeting or seeing the oppressed.

The next revolution will not abolish the consequences of place of birth, but the privileges of nationhood will be tempered. While the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment around the world today seems to point in the opposite direction, the sense of injustice will be amplified as communications continue to grow. Ultimately, recognition of wrong will wreak big changes.

For now, this recognition still faces strong competition from patriotic impulses, rooted in a social contract among nationals who have paid taxes over the years or performed military service to build or defend what they saw as exclusively theirs. Allowing unlimited immigration would seem to violate this contract.

But the most important steps to address birthplace injustice probably will not target immigration. Instead, they will focus on fostering economic freedom.

In 1948, Paul A. Samuelson’s “factor-price equalization theorem” lucidly showed that under conditions of unlimited free trade without transportation costs (and with other idealized assumptions), market forces would equalize the prices of all factors of production, including the wage rate for any standardized kind of labor, around the world. In a perfect world, people don’t have to move to another country to get a higher wage. Ultimately, they need only be able to participate in producing output that is sold internationally.

As technology reduces the cost of transportation and communications to near the vanishing point, achieving this equalization is increasingly feasible. But getting there requires removing old barriers and preventing the erection of new ones.

Ultimately, the next revolution will likely stem from daily interactions on computer monitors with foreigners whom we can see are intelligent, decent people – people who happen, through no choice of their own, to be living in poverty. This should lead to better trade agreements, which presuppose the eventual development of orders of magnitude more social insurance to protect people within a country during the transition to a more just global economy.

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Hey Shiller, I think I got your context right but disagree with your comment, "strong competition from patriotic impulses, rooted in a social contract among nationals who have paid taxes over the years or performed military service to build or defend what they saw as exclusively theirs." I have paid taxes for 40+ years and served for 20+. I did it for what was "ours" (meaning all Americans). Big difference... Read more

Being born in another country is not an "injustice" in that it needs some legal remedy or some new rights to be granted. Personally I don't believe in my time I will see this rising up of the masses. I do agree on one point, but on slightly different reasons. With 2.5 billion people dumped on the global labor market the last 25 years, and we are only just now starting to feel the effect of that supply resetting the global labor rates. Hence LT interest rates will stay low as there is no labor cost push and there will it be as technology continues to facilitate the global resetting of labor costs. Read more

This seemed like gibberish until it got to the point and I realized it was advocacy for more government programs. Today's global elite whether in New Haven or Shanghai or Lagos, Nigeria have more in common with each other than they do with the average citizen of their country. What this has to do with a revolution is lost on me. Certainly Schiller gives no clue as to what it means or looks like, Is this Marx's proletariat overthrowing the ruling elites? Not likely what he meant (though I have no clue what he did mean) nor is it likely to happen. Read more

The injustice often comes about because of the inadequacies of the nation state a person lives in. How can these injustices be corrected without reordering these nation states which is a tall order. Read more

Robert. Thank you for sharing your thinking. I agree with the bulk of what you say... but there is not a lot new there. I think that the overlay of technology and the immediacy of global communications to is generally accepted and as you point out a theoretical level playing field has greater potential of coming into being. However, I don't think this deals with 2 key issues first the Mobility of Capital which is fickle indeed and currently held in place by the old barriers. Now the fact that capital already moves seeking relative advantage is there a realistically an end point to this as technology changes that landscape of relative advantage... Will the the issue of the cost of labour remain a key future driver to the movement of capital? Will society and the leadership of advanced nations be able to meet the changes to barriers as quickly as those controlling capital? Additionally the technological changes will likely effect advanced nations equally as technology continues to reshape the landscape and the nature of work in advanced economies. Indeed we are seeing rising trends in unemployment and underemployment across most of the advance nations which seem set to continue as technology has the advantage and ascendancy in advancing and adapting faster than the majority of human beings. Technology will undoubtedly continue and consolidate these trends in rising unemployment and underemployment in advanced nations. This has the potential to move the bar lower for those in advanced nations and not just at the blue collar level as seen already. The next/current wave of technology will predominantly effect the middle class white collar jobs. So I question whether the trends toward anti immigration and protectionist position is in fact transient or actually the reaction to what may in fact be a systemic problem.So will this sense of injustice really be focused outwardly in a globally or inwardly. The later is the current trend, it may indeed give way to a more global view, but will the justice being sort not possibly be for an economic system that values the social needs people as highly as the economic in an environment where technology in advanced nations may equally create disadvantage and new classes born into relative disadvantage in their own countries.After all the current system dicatates growth growth growth at all costs, otherwise it cannibalistically seeks to create loss to inorder create space for growth. Will ever more highly educated and ever growing underclasses in advanced nations accept this.

Is more of the same faster really going to be seen in the longer run as the solution?Will it be that those from developing nations in fact have more to teach us? As they shape economic and social systems learning from the flaws of western economics and take greater account of the societies they want to see and the culture they wish to maintain. Read more

A pointless, simplistic article disproven by every major development of the current century, written from the point of someone who has lost (or "overcome", whatever) his own national identity.

Today's globalised elite has more in common with each other than with the people of the countries they originally came from. Nothing would benefit these elites more than disbanding the power of national state - the only entity that explicitly care about its citizens, be they fortunate or unfortunate, clever or dumb, rich or poor. Global elites care about nothing and no-one but themselves.

They would love to have some bureaucratic, supra-national entity ruling this world, an entity that would be bound by nothing but their desire to increase their own power.

How very transparent indeed. Every time someone like Shiller announces the end of the nation state I fear what the future holds for us. Read more

The middle class (the bourgeoisie) historically wanted to have as much as money they could, but they always met with social, political, conventional regulations such as feudalism and absolutist monarchism. They overthrew those anti-democratic polities; they found in (economic) liberalism the most powerful weapon to bring down the anti-democratic, anachronistic institutions. We live in the age of a nation-state, but it poses cumbersome shackles, in this world of international transactions, which severely set limits and restrictions to their freer money-mongering, but they come up again with their liberal philosophy of internationalism to combat the national boundary, as their money greed is trying to expand beyond the nation-states to the rim of the universe and internationalism is seemingly hard to contradict, of "All that we need to care about is the explusive pursuit of profit. Everything else is automatically set right."

Our instinctive disdain, now deeply ingrained in us, of political power needs to be reexamined. Even a democracy needs political power, and the political power needs to be absolutist political power in the sense that it absolutely binds every member; a bill that is passed through a natinal assembly needs to absolutely bind every citizen; a house that has two presidents or prime ministers is divided and cannot stand. Of course, we wish our democratic system to be well-informed, rational, lenient, and wise, and etc. If we had a world government some day, it would have to have an absolutely binding parliament somewhere and every citizen would have to respect its decisions or it would be filled with internal wars.

Dictators and corrupt leaders can impose their personal desires on people through political institutions, but in a democracy political power can maintain social order, social justice, equality, ets. and other desirable values which will be unattainable through the mere economic pursuit of economic profits. Read more

Professor Shiller may indeed be correct in his assessment. He has covered himself by placing his revolution "sometime in the twenty-first century." The sixteen years that we have so far experienced would seem to disprove his thesis as many of the comments suggest, but we still have 84 years to go before we can say he is definitely wrong. Read more

This is such a terribly simplistic analysis. Yes there are successful economies and there are successful societies which "appear" to have better life chances or resources so offending against the author's belief of "social justice" or equality of life chances and wealth irrespective of where you live.

By rights some resource rich countries in Africa should be wealthy and self sufficient in food. The fact that Zimbabwe cannot feed itself and is now starving to death is down to the corrupt and incompetent rule of Mugabe; the same can be said of any number of African nation states, who receive wealth in the way of aid and generate from raw materials, yet their societies are no better off, because those at the top syphon it off for their own personal benefit. South America there are similar corruption stories and Eastern Europe and Russia we see filthy rich Oligarchs, squandering the wealth of nations on super yachts and wildly expensive homes around the world - there is no "social justice" in any of that.

Pray tell me how you can resolve all these inequalities? SHould the people of Britain, hard working taxpayers, who subject themselves to austerity cuts, suppressed wages and poorer life chances themselves for the betterment of the unemployed in Greece; Spain and France? Would that please your sensitivities and revulsion that a nation should be able to have jobs and a future because others don't have such blessings? Countries like Britain have spent billions of £ trying to assist and support struggling emerging economies, but every time these countries through greed and selfish personal interests their leaders abuse their position and sell their people short.

There is no point in writing meaningless articles about "what should be"; what we need to start with is how things are and how we can change them - junking the nation state, the repository of culture; language; values and memories is not something any country would willingly do and even if your paternalistic highly left wing ant nation view was correct (which it isn't) you could at least ask permission from those societies from whom you intend to strip their democracy and identity before you go ahead and do it. Sadly the EU has never had the guts to say that its objective is to obliterate the nation state and create a single nation called Europe - had it done so originally we might feel that at least the project was open and honest at the outset - to come out 40 years later and say that countries like Britain; France and Germany should no longer exist and that we are all now one happy clappy country run by unelected bureaucrats is about as outrageous and unacceptable as Merkel inviting the rest of the world into Europe without consulting anyone.

The nation state, is more than just a psychological construct that needs eradicating. Many of us love nation states, we love the difference in Italy compared to France compared to Germany compared to Spain and the contrasts in Britain compared to Poland. Rich histories, architecture; science and literature are a sound and vital part of who we are today. The nation state is a repository to all those things a society holds dear; its national memory and societal history and language. The author is far too simplistic to imagine you can take a rubber or an EU diktat and pretend nations never existed. Besides, the national interests of Germany and France are the pivotal deciders of EU policy so wake up and realise that national interests are alive and kicking and have NEVER gone away - albeit some leaders are a lot worse at serving their people than others and it should not be up to the better leaders who do well for their people to pay the price for those leaders and societies who are left by the wayside. Read more

The coming revolution will remove from power and influence The Political Class that have dragged The West into a new Dark Age by dint of wholesale abandonment of reference to experimental results, logic and common sense.

Theses conceited, smug fools high on the Kool Aid of the Religions of Political-Correctness, Social-Justice and Multiculturalism, have demonstrated a complete lack of fitness for political and bureaucratic office. They now stand exposed and naked in front of their respective electorates. The people are in no mood to be told to eat cake.

Is the TPP a good or better trade agreement? One of the major problems is equating corporate entities with "nations/states". Even within the US, there is extensive conflict over trade/labor issues because of corporate legal maneuvering that is crossing onto the "nation/state" legal ground, On the Fact Sheet for ISDS, this conclusion is highly questionable and not necessarily valid: "The evidence is equally clear in the United States. Despite having 50 ISDS agreements in place, the United States has never lost a case and nothing in our agreements has inhibited our response to the 2008 financial crisis, diluted the financial reforms we put in place, or has challenged signature reforms like the Affordable Care Act or any of the other new regulations that have been put in place over the last 30 years.". Aren't certain corporations such as APPLE and even GOOGLE, and many others trying to really bend all regulations so these corporations can basically act in anyway they want, especially to flaunt national, and international tax regulations? How is the US healthcare act any fine example of quality AFFORDABLE care for the majority of US citizens. Many other nations have better healthcare than the US. The US is no leader in many aspects of modern global existence. US only rates #28 in a list of top 30 nations. The weakest links in the TPP and TTIP are the fineprint for international laws' interpretations that never get reviewed nor discussed publicly to the masses. There has been little transparency and good debate about fine print legal issues of these agreements. There's a lot of propaganda being reinforced to sway superficial political groupings and followings. These agreements are not necessarily "even better such agreements" for future citizens of nations/states. These agreements allow for pretty good paybacks for initial investments for a few, over the next 20 years. That's all. Read more

I sincerely hope that MR Shiller's theses is correct. The increasing nationalism , which is exemplified by Mr Trump in the current U.S. Presidential campaign and gaining popularity in Europe is disconcerting at the very least....downright dangerous in my opinion. A nationalistic attitude can become a zero sum game wherein the inclusion or "patiortism" of one group comes at the exclusion or oppression of another. In many Europiean countries the fear that's feeding this attitude is driven by a mass migration of refugees and others from neighboring areas in conflict. This is a serious problem with complicated inplacations and no simple remedy, however isolationism and nationalistic policy is only more harmful. By contrast, Mr Trump's rhetoric is driven only by his own ego and desire for attention and personal power and gain. Of course our country must face the problems of jobs displaced by technology or globalization, and other economic inequalities, but Mr Trump's vicious attacks on minorities, immigrates and even our major trade partners Mexico and China does nothing but fuel fear, hate and discontent. He would have us believe that the U.S. Is in a state of disaster and that it is all someone else's fault. Hitler was able to drive his nationalistic agenda in large part because Germany was in an economic shambles with WW 1 reparations crippling the country and rampant inflation to the tune of 1000%. No such disaster exists in the U.S. today so Mr. Trump attempts to create one and blame Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese, gays, socialists, and anybody else he can think of for his mostly immanged picture of a U.S. In decline. To engage in nationalism and isolationism at a social, economic, political, or military level in the current age of exponential technological innovation and globalization is simply stupid. Read more

There is a difference between "healthy" nationalism and Mr. Trump's specific brand of paranoid near-fascism.

One of the reasons Trump is so successful is that healthy nationalism has been snubbed by our own elites and has nearly disappeared, leaving ordinary citizens to choose between the mindless fearmonging Trump and the empty husk that is Clinton.

Roosevelt, Truman, Lincoln, even Wilson were no doubt "nationalistic" in their thinking (Americans might say "patriotic", but it's technically the same). They all believed they were part of a great nation and had vision to shape that nation's - and with it, the world's - future for the better.

A lot to agree with here. The Glorious Revolution really was the beginning of Western constitutional government. The lonely thinker is indeed (as I think Isaiah Berlin pointed out) the man to beware off. Yes there is a law of one price but we should be careful not over reach when it comes to its application as the supply siders have historically tended to do. And yes the forces Shiller mentions are at work but he probably underestimates the obstacles that lie in the path of their realization. The principal one is the dysfunctionality of many states. Unless the developed world is willing to undertake their supervision (sounds very like the concept of trusteeship in the post WW I mandates doesn't it?) it's hard to see how this is overcome. Take a Mexico next door to the US which has existed as a sovereign state since early in the 19th century but the fact is it's a borderline failed state despite many accoutrements of modernism. Would it surprise anyone if it collapsed in anarchy next year? Then while it is well recognized by the elites in the developed world that globalization and technology have largely eroded if not eliminated completely the boundaries between countries this knowledge is largely confined to the top tier of societies . This incidentally is what makes the recent British Brexit vote so absurd but it is a perfect demonstration that this message has not reached down to the vast mass of society. Even in the US you have the far left and far right railing against free trade even though its citizens enjoy the benefits at their Home Depot or Apple stores. Altogether it's hard to see the anti national revolution coming any time soon. Read more

Sounds like more of the same to me — a race to the bottom. Or, to be more specific, taking neoliberal globalism to its logical absurdity: downward harmonization of wages until the lowest wages on record become universal. Absolute “free” trade, i.e., absolute freedom from any responsibility for the health and safety of labour, consumers, and the environment. It’s a model that American government has been illustrating for us since at least 2008: the Citizens United model of democratic surrender, i.e., citizens’ freedom from the responsibility of self-government. In short, who needs a nation-state when Wall Street and multinational corporations are so willing to take over its functions that they will pay for the right to do so? Read more

People are born in a rich or a poor country by an accident of birth, but the prosperity or poverty of that country was not an accident, nor was it caused by borders, unless the borders were used to sustain an "us and them" mentality, used to excuse impoverishing one nation at the expense of another. The natural wealth of many, if not all, impoverished countries has been exploited, and is still being exploited, to enrich "developed" nations. Add the destruction and chaos left behind by colonial wars, and some countries are left not impoverished, but destitute. Borders didn't cause this, nor did nation states. Inviting a few of the "deserving poor" here to be domestics or charity wards won't solve it, although it may be balm to the conscience. Read more

I project just the reverse. Heretofore, it's been rather chic to consider oneself a citizen of the world, but now we're twigging onto the fact that the predations of transnational grillionaires can be stopped only by nation-states revivified by democracy (instead of bought and paid for by the grillionaires). There's no doubt in my mind that people want their countries to get back to their proper jobs of protecting them. The handwriting's already on the wall! Read more

Nationalism Brexit nasty bricks through windows verbal and physical agreesion even muder should be consigned to the trash bin of the ignorant nasty English nationalism You wonder why some way wat give it ? and I am not a Nat I am my European Making sustainable liberal european Social Democratic seriously Read more

Injustice is seeing how the Shiller housing price index tells me where I can and cannot live. Citizens will deal with that through insurrection rather than fight for the abstract of worldwide free trade. Read more

Shlller has it backwards. Free trade benefits are resolutely abstract, unlike the immediate and tangible consequences of locally imposed monarchy and slavery. Immediacy is a requirement for revolution, and what Shiller proposes has none of that.Instead we are more likely to see civil insurrections against nation states based on inequality. Following Shiller's own real estate tracking we see that huge swathes of many nation's urban areas are now priced beyond working citizen's means, yet the agglomeration of capital increases in those urban areas. Citizens with long family connections, deep cultural roots, and hopes for those urban areas are being priced out by relentless "free market" land price imbalances tied to global capital swings. This market-derived inability within one's nation state to reside in economically performing areas will lead to physical confrontations over rights of residence at locale. It will be about inclusion and heritage and patrimony.The real danger comes from the Western mindset which is allowing market forces to exclude massive swathes of its people from productive regions. That is immediate, tangible, and on-the-ground reality. Violence against that is inevitable. Read more

This article is purely a theological discourse, not a clear-headed assessment of the inevitable evolution of the world and its societies, just as Prof. Shiller's "Finance and the Good Society" was a theological discourse, along with Marx's "Das Kapital." This is all dogma presented as reasoned analysis. And, as the dogmatic assertions of the Catholic Church fell before the Renaissance and Enlightment.

The world has indeed experienced various intellectual revolutions, a few of which have dramatically transformed the everyday lives of average people in societies where individuals claimed their individual rights. "God-given" is a term frequently used to distinguish these rights as natural, arising from our very existence, as opposed to granted by some divinely appointed overlord. However, the instances in which such rights have been claimed, institutionalized and defended from those who would reduce their societies to some primitive might-is-right grouping of fearful individuals fighting over a small and contracting pie is shrinking, not expanding.

This is partly aided by the cartelization of once-successful societies like the U.S., in which a once-representative government has been captured by extraordinarily powerful business interests like banking, big phrama and the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against. Oh, btw, the handmaiden to all of this consolidation of power is the modern finance industry, which Prof. Shiller continues to defend, despite the obvious fact that it has become a parasitic menace not only to its host societies but to any society in which it can gain a foothold.

The Dark Forces that ran rampant at various times in our histories are once again loosed on the world. It is not inevitable that tyranny will triumph, nor is it a given the defense of individual rights will prevail. The lesson of history is people recognize when they're being lied to, and when their sacrifices are being made in the name of cynics who use national myths and idealizations as fodder to exert their will.

The prof would serve his audience better helping to expose these threats and the most effective ways to combat them in his small sphere -- finance -- rather than continually invoking our founding myths. He could also extol the sacrifice made by the generations of Americans who died defending these rights and freedoms he so blithely assumes will spread to the rest of the planet. Read more

It is quite common to attack and then read later. I suppose in some ways your proposal belongs to the Enlightenment where one could have the ear of a despot or ruler. Even the best of ideas will not make it through the democratic system. Interests and power usually diminish the efficacy of any well intentioned scheme When Thomas Paine was in France where they had a revolution, he the author of the Rights of Man narrowly escaped the guillotine. I think that perhaps given the chaos of kleptocratic and theocratic states and other systems...all like dodgems bumping into each other that any rational programme will be bunped out of existence. Read more

This article is so out of touch with reality. Anti-immigrant sentiment is not based on abstract notions like 'social contract'. That is just a philosophical idea that means nothing to the vast majority of people. Anti-immigratnt sentiment does not have any economic ground, it is based on the fact that blood runs thinker than water, people favor their own ethnicity, culture, language even despite objective economic downsides to doing so (just look at brexit). Of course elites feel no loyalty to their own at all and that is why they will never understand how wrong they are. Read more

Over 30 years ago a GE executive told me that the 80 cents a day global wage would soon enough catch up to USA wages, so not to worry about losing jobs. That wage inflation still hasn't happened and I will likely die long before it does. Also over time I get mixed impressions of Shiller's 'decent folks in other countries.' Filipinos seem polite & kind but overwhelmingly support Duterte no matter how many get killed. Turkey's Erdogan seems decent and insightful in saying USA allies are naive about which factions to trust in Syria, then he goes on an extreme purge in Turkey. Obama & Britain supported the decent Libyans overthrowing Khadaffi, then Libya descended into violent anarchy. Indians seem British and decent but millions have no toilet and corruption is severe. Chinese seem decent but take over the China Sea as easily as Tibet in the 50's. Even Assad in Syria seems decent on TV, but he is either 2 faced or held hostage by his own brutal generals. Read more

Foreigners already seek redress for their "birthplace injustice" by coming to the US, for instance, on a visa and never returning home. Enough of it will cause people in the US and other developed countries to put a stop to it because it is so fundamentally unfair. There is already a reaction to it underway. Politicians that think otherwise will be tossed out. Read more

Let me understand: those fortunate enough to have been born in nations that enjoy economic well being are going to volunteer to suffer a severe decrease in their standard of living because this will be healthier for the species as a whole? Right! And those married to attractive significant others are going to willingly swap their spouses with those who are ugly because this will result in more overall sexual satisfaction. Read more

there is some conceit of a well fed and comfortable in this article. Prof Schiller forgets about underlying economic reality. Which is that the world is not technologically ready to absorb 7 billion, never mind 10 billion, into industrial civilization. The drive for social justice will be quite tempered by the desire to keep a full tummy, running water, medical care and perhaps a continuing desire for a muscle car, perhaps some nice vacation every year. Slavery was not abolished by cultural evolution, but by technological revolution that made human slavery obsolete. The same has to happen here, and it will not happen until the explosive population growth stops so that technological evolution can catch up. Read more

The challenge with declining population is deflation. Deflation in an over leveraged world will collapse asset values, banks, savings and the fiat monetary system. We are trying to extend the industrial era infrastructure and processes when a new era has already emerged. All the stress we see today has been created by this natural need/desire/instinct to cling to an era that's past us by. This is why all the experts since 08/09, like Schiller, haven't been able to fix the problems. Monetary policy didn't work so it's now time to return to Keynesian policy. That will also not work but hey...it can sustain at least one more President. Read more

Agree: there are too many people on this planet where the pace of technology (e. g., artificial intelligence and robotics) is slowly diminishing the numbers of factory jobs providing livable wages Read more

Prof. Shiller, my long-standing and practically developed proposal for The University of the Global Village based in Vilnius still up for taking (by LT authorities) subject to my USPTO Trademark. There is nobody better than you, Sir, to give it an intellectual push globally. Regards, Val Samonis (about.me/val.samonis); Skype: val.samonis Read more

I was a little excited by this until I got to equalization under trade agreements... We in the United States are already at slave labor wages... have been for decades. The lowest 50% (165 million people) of Americans hold Less then 1% percent of the nations wealth.. that needs to be solved first before any further flat-lining (equalizing) of our wages.. I'm shocked and surprised we have not had a revolution already... Trends in Family Wealth, 1989 to 2013 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51846 Read more

"Ultimately, the next revolution will likely stem from daily interactions on computer monitors with foreigners whom we can see are intelligent, decent people – people who happen, through no choice of their own, to be living in poverty" Should that be "who" we can see, instead of "whom" ??Read more

Samuelson's Theorem when applied to EU would mean that market forces would equalize the prices of factors of production and therefore the need for migration of labor from one country of EU to the other would cease to exist. In some ways it may be correct but not entirely. It is not entirely because we live in imperfections that are more politically motivated than otherwise.

This essay is one of the best written essays by Prof Shiller. Read more

What Samuelson (who wrote my econ text book, did not address, was the ability of machines/technology to replace a workforce. There is a theory that new and better opportunities ALWAYS open up. From my point of view, this cannot always be taken as a given. He is correct in that wages in China have increased so they outsource but their self financed business gain inside China so far has made up for that difference. They are assuming it will always be so, but will it? Free Trade will work for "you", but only as long as one holds the advantage. Read more

ONE LANGUAGE THAT COUNTS - NOT RELIGION or RACE THAT DIVIDESIn highlighting an insight that few have surfaced in his manner, Professor Shiller is at his best.The World Economic Epicentre today is The Anglosphere - national boundaries were largely drawn @ Westminster.In parts of the World where Westminster could not, boundaries have been permanent battlegrounds.Europe remains a bottomless supplier of migrants - by dissolving boundaries to facilitate The East and The South.Similar dissolution of boundaries perhaps the solution elsewhere - ClubMed needs MegaCities in The Mediterranean to absorb Refugee flows.The Anglosphere perhaps the ultimate template - by ensuring One Language, they emerged with boundaries permanently dissolved.European failures compared to Europe perhaps explained by the absence of One Language.Migration is inevitable because Investment Equalization never happens in the Real World.Dissolution of boundaries perhaps the greatest facilitator of Migration.Walls that Trump wants to build - goes against history.The greatest irony perhaps - Trump coming to America itself a result of European Migration.Where Religion or Race make assimilation impossible - Mankind will need its Greatest Genius to build facilitators.Even the power of One Language perhaps has limitations.Professor Shiller has articulated a challenge whose time is opportune. Read more

Gosh!! That might explain why Australia's RELATIVE prosperity has declined steadily since Federation in line with the increasing power of the central government.

It might explain why - in 30 of 32 Constitutional referendums seeking to increase central power - Australians have voted NO (in contrast to the 50% success rate in other referendums) but have nevertheless seen centralised power grow relentlessly through ultra-constitutional means.

It might explain why Australia is a rent-seeker's paradise in which those regions and industries which enjoy a comparative advantage (in agriculture, minerals, energy and some tourism) are taxed to support the capital city populations which do manifestly not.Read more

Thanks once again, Peter.We all have our imperfections - mine perhaps more manifest than others :):):)One Language is the Magic that transforms YUGOSLAVIA into AUSTRALIA.Europe appears permanently headed towards 40 Yugoslavias.Professor Shiller believes in dissolution of boundaries - that enables Growth amidst the Globalization predicament.One Language the best template is my belief - not One Religion or One Race or One Sect or One Ethnicity.My preference hence for a EUROPE that is MORE AUSTRALIA THAN YUGOSLAVIA.Happy to confess my vote for English :):):) Read more

You keep talking about Europe as if it was a single country. Europe is a continent of 40+ countries, each with its own language, culture, identity, it cannot just have one common language, just like Asia, Africa etc dont have one language, culture or identity. That´s the fundamental difference you´re missing causing you to make wrong conclusions. I think.

The reason US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand are successful with migration has nothing to do with language and everything to do with their identity. These are countries of migrants, built by migrants. Europe dont have a migrant identity, Europe was not built by migrants, Europe was built by Europeans. That´s a rather big and fundamental difference, dont you think? The importance of language used is rather meaningless in this regard, i would say. Read more

Thanks Peter, for comments I appreciate.The Author, I think, makes the point that Migration is a Reality - irrespective of the many predicaments that causes Migration.And then submits recommendations amounting to extremely reasonable ways to manage the resultant need for assimilation. European failures compared to The Anglosphere perhaps explained by the absence of One Language.But for The Anglosphere - and the Migration it permitted and harnessed - Europeans were in permanent Meltdown.The Anglosphere appears to my mind as one of the best templates that have emerged with boundaries permanently dissolved.Agree with many of the inputs you make - The Rich World does not owe a good life to anyone, Poverty in Africa will not be solved by Europe or by Migration, There are more walls outside Europe than in Europe.Regards.JS.Read more

You are way too much focused on Europe and on migration. Poverty in Asia and Africa wont be solved by Europe, and surely not by migration. Either asians and africans develop their countries or they will be living in poverty. That´s the cold reality whether you like it or not, admit it or not.

As for walls, there are way more walls outside Europe than in Europe. Morrocco walled itself off, India walled of Bangladesh etc.

And I never talked about race or religion, you must be confusing me with someone else. Read more

The facilitation that the learned Professor suggested - is a lesson from history.Thank God for the brilliance of such Nobel Minds - that enabled The flourishing of America Australia and Canada.But for The Anglosphere - and the Migration it permitted and harnessed - Europe was tearing itself apart.Yugoslavia is a more recent example of "Walls" - that created 7 Nations from One. All 7 now are potential migrants.

You are right in stating that "The rich world does not owe a good life to anyone". After the Walls that are threatening to tear the world again, the only salvation I see is The Anglosphere template.Montreals-on-the-Mediterranean : that can harness the refugees flow.Brown Canada, Black Australia, Yellow America : are needed in Arabia, in Africa, in India, in China, in Asia.That harness the unfortunate predicaments which result in Migration.

As for the Race or Religion - that you alluded to - I don't think hope needs quotas.You are right - No one owes their riches to anyone - but the Author is talking of facilitating assimilation.Even Small Islands have been transformed in history into Great Powers - by remaining engaged.Not walled inside...

Of course, all of us are entitled to our opinions.And respected for the thoughts we share here at ProSyn.RegardsJS.Read more

What Trump wants goes against history? That means you never heard of Great Chinese Wall, Hadrian´s Wall, Antonine Wall and many more artificial barriers that worked very well in the past. We are heading to world of walls, not to world of mass migration. Walls are springing up everywhere. Your home country India is building a long 1000+km fence all around Bangladesh to stop migration. Same happening all around the world.

As for Club Med, they need to stop and return all migrants and refugees. Of 50 countries in Africa, war is only in 2-3. There are plenty of safe countries in Africa where they can wait through the war in their country and then go back.

The rich world doesnt owe a good life to everyone. If Asians and Africans want to live in rich countries they need to developed their own countries. Either they build up their countries or they will live in poverty. As simple as that. A question of responsibility. Read more

Worthless speculation. Shiller evidently expects nations to negotiate their own demise, but the EU's experiments with such negotiations are not encouraging. The US found a way forward through a "we, the people" type of union, which gave the people as a whole a structure through which to hold subsidiary states in line. If there is another approach to the problem, then it hasn't surfaced yet on this planet. Read more

I commend Professor Shiller’s article for its clarity of thought, insight and message—even if his very measured take leaves me with a glass-half-empty feeling. It always seems to shock people to hear that national borders are amongst the biggest impediments to human progress and prosperity. Yet borders are accidents of history, not laws of nature. Today they serve principally to divide people and preserve privilege and a false sense of superiority. They nurture an insidious form of identity-based politics, which is responsible for most major conflicts around the world, by giving nationalism a misguided sense of decency and righteousness whereas all it does is to exclude everybody else. I hope the next intellectual revolution comes soon.Read more

Elite theologians may talk superciliously about the "end of borders" but do not be deceived. They do not intend to abolish borders. They simply want to replace "national borders" (over which the stinking mass of citizens might have had some control) with "private borders": Elite private property enforced by a government whose role has been streamlined to nothing more than . . . . well, nothing more than defending the Elite's private property.

The Elite do not intend to rub shoulders with the Stinking Masses. Not at all! THEY will retreat to their private mansions, their private country estates, their private gated communities surrounded by private borders sporting "KEEP OUT! Trespassers Will be Prosecuted" signs.

From there they will sermonise piously on the shortcomings of those outside whom they regard as their inferiors. Read more

Although a lifetime optimist, I am grateful I am now too old to worry about the coming of AI, advanced robotics, and what promises to be a hyper automation revolution. A world without a need for living workers does not seem particularly appealing.

This article is an excellent example of new Elite apologia. The New Elite Agenda is actually for a "refeudalisation" of society to restore their historical privileges. But - like Elites throughout history - they seek to weave a cloak of virtue to conceal the nakedness of this self-interest.

Stripped of its ephemera, human history up until the time of the Modern Era era was a story of aggressively narcissistic, machiavellian psychopaths competing (sometimes collaborating) to attain positions of power, then using that power to dominate and brutalise their fellow human beings. We know from the historical record that such psychopaths feel no remorse in wasting the lives of thousands - even millions - of people they regard as "their" Subjects.

In this behaviour, psychopathic rulers were abetted by "sycophants" - typically less dominant males - who sought to promote their own survival by allying themselves with the dominant males.

Historically, the ability of such an Elite to dominate and brutalise others was limited by the capacity of individual human beings to kill each other, and therefore by the need to recruit and reward a circle of allies (a "praetorian guard") which could carry out such such enforcement.

If that long-standing behaviour seemed to change in the Modern Era it was not because the psychopaths woke up one morning and said, "Oh my God, is that the time!? Is it the Modern Era already? Quick. We'd better start enacting social reforms!"

Human psychology has not evolved. Evolution operates over a MUCH longer time frame. The psychopaths (and their sycophant supporters) haven't gone away.

All that happened in the Modern Era was a temporary change in the environment: the demands of the industrial economy made it expedient – for a time – for the rulers to make limited concessions to their Subjects.

The industrial state required the training of large numbers of Subjects to operate the complex – but not fully automated – machinery of industrial production. Having had so much invested in them, Subjects had value and their bargaining power relative to their rulers improved. In the extreme, they could withdraw their labour and quickly impose greater costs on the owners of capital than they themselves suffered.

Under such conditions, the optimal strategy for rulers (only after they had tried violent suppression and found it ineffective) was to make certain limited concession to their Subjects. Thus we had the quintessential ideals of the Modern Era, culminating in the 20th century:

a) egalitarianism, the ideal that all people are entitled to the same basic opportunities irrespective of their ancestry;

b) democratisation, the ideal that Subjects are entitled to have some say in how they are governed; and

c) self-determination, the ideal that self-identifying communities are allowed to choose for themselves how they will govern themselves.

But, again, these concessions didn’t mean that the psychopaths had gone away. And there was never anything to say that the conditions of industrial production would last forever.

What we are now witnessing is the Elite’s response to the post-industrial world of AI and robotics.

No longer are large numbers of Subjects required to run complex but not fully automated machinery. Now it is small numbers of very highly trained technicians required to manage the robotic workforce. Small in number, they can easily be bought off, or better still reduced to the status of indentured workers through the weapon of crippling student debt.

As for the rest of humanity, they are now redundant or soon will be. Their rulers no longer need them. The earlier concessions are - as the saying goes - "inoperative".

To be sure, the masses may get employment of a kind, especially in providing personal services. But it will be employment in the "Uber Economy" of savage competition between workers with all economic rent flowing to the owners of the monopolistic market platforms.

And the Elite are responding precisely as one would expect an aggressively narcissistic, self-serving Elite to respond. They are relentlessly winding back any concessions hitherto made, while their economic theologians are busy trying to justify it as being for the “Greater Good”.

Inequality is quickly returning to its historical norm, as Piketty has documented. We are returning to a feudal state in which property is owned by the magnates and almost everyone else is reduced to the status of dependent serf.

As for democratisation, in most countries it never developed beyond "elective" government dominated by Elite parties. Moneyed interests and pressure groups have found it a trivial exercise to subvert that.

To entrench their gains, they are taking ever more critical decisions out of the hands even of elective government: the privatisation of strategic monopolies and essential services means that elected politicians are forced negotiate with private magnates on terms dictated by the private magnates.

And finally, self-determination has been eroded by the growth of opaque and unaccountable supranational organisations (like the EU) and so-called “trade” agreements (which actually have little to do with trade and everything to do with taking decisions out of the hands of national governments and giving them to unaccountable panels of the Elite).

Elitist theologians may talk superciliously about the "end of borders" but do not be deceived. They do not intend to abolish ALL borders. They simply want to replace "national borders" (over which the Stinking Masses might have had some control) with "private borders": Elite private property enforced by a government whose role has been streamlined to nothing more than . . . . well, nothing more than defending the Elite's private property!!

The Elite do not intend to rub shoulders with the Stinking Masses. Not at all! THEY will retreat to their private mansions and their private country estates from where they will sermonise piously on the shortcomings of those they regard as their inferiors.

At some point, the Elite may even decide that the continued existence of masses of redundant human beings is a threat to their own security.

And it is here that the recent development of lethal weaponised robots becomes a grave danger. Not only do the Elite not need workers. They don't even need many human members of the Praetorian Guard.

Remember that the individuals we are talking about here are not like the rest of us. They are aggressively narcissistic, machiavellian psychopaths with a strong appetite for attaining power and dominating others.

The current institutions of elective government are simply not robust enough to contain such people once the cost of pacification falls as a result of robotics.

Bravo, You, Stephen Morris. Perfectly said. (I hope this will post as a reply to your post that begins, "This article is an excellent example of new Elite apologia," but that result doesn't look promising from here.) Read more

Stephen, thanks for the effort, elite are keeping their armchairs while rest of us 'serve'; borders are tightening and mind divisions increase, silly & dangerous situation. keep learning to survive. best, MP Read more

The fact that inequalities around the World are increasingly visible in the internet age will without doubt drive significant Global change in the 21st century. However, it is wrong to suggest that the primary fault lines of this growing anger and resentment will be national. Western societies are increasingly divided between those who have the skills and background to compete and benefit from the Global economy, and those witout education or opportunities, who are being left behind. Simultaneously women across the World can see the degree to which they loose out to men in both access to opportunities and economic rewards for performance, while many ethnic and religious minorities find themselves disadvantaged and even isolated from the nations in which they themselves hold full citizenship.

Identity politics will indeed be a key issue in the 21st century, but it will be driven by many complex forces, of which nationality is but only one. Indeed many international cities including London, Geneva, and Auckland already include 30 to 40 percent of residents who are migrants born outside the country. Like Global corporations, our biggest cities may soon become so international that they no longer feel part of the countries where they are based.

In these multi-cultural "Global" cities the conclusion is fairly obvious - that for many their primary sense of identity will simply expand till they think of themselves as "Global Citizens". They will soon demand the freedom of movement, equal rights of employment, education for their children, and economic opportunities that follow from an essentially World view. As our leading international cities compete to operate as part of this increasingly integrated Global society they will want to make this happen. The real question is then whether national governments, and more traditional ethnic communities of citizens in the suburbs will continue to stand in their way. The cultural and political outcome will vary from country to country, but we should not expect a revolution. We will simply see those countries that can build on the opportunities that Global integration provides, move forward rapidly. Meanwhile those who will not, or cannot accept more universal values will follow at a distance, and on a much slower path behind.

Without a fair and efficient way to transfer income from capital to labor free trade won't work in our lopsided world:1) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WIdVnQEWdYgYYly9iKkesWCVhfINvbtwuVq2GMOxMbw/edit?usp=sharing2) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qJCdkd50kFib3VqagZdSZiPYSKNpZ83JQ6LteKbLWuE/edit?usp=sharing Read more

"It will focus on the injustice that follows from the fact that, entirely by chance, some are born in poor countries and others in rich countries. "No. Obsolete.... the next step of globalization will be the decoupling of living-space with work-space. (project-organized "enterprises of time" with global staffing) This will be disruptive enough to kill most of the middle-class workers in the rich countries, because their costs of living is higher than the wage of three alternative workers in other regions of the world... But, in a world where there are only rich and poor, the headline will likely be "The coming Anti-Rich Revolution" ...... the last time this happened, the "leaders" were forced to make war to each other for keeping control over the jobless masses... Read more

I's not us or them. The real drive of globalization is the profit of the rich. The profit of the international companies. The natural law of profit maximization is driving job transfer, to minimize the wages, and the same time is asking for free trade, so the sales can be make on the most expensive markets. NOBODY wants to help the third world. It's an unintended consequence. The real revolution is the fight of multinational companies to escape national regulations. It's a revolution of the rich against the poor, of the few against their identity with the many. As the fight against financial regulation, it's a revolution of the rich against any attempt to control them, against any responsibility interfering with making profit. To make anyone but them irrelevant. Read more

Samuelson's idealized markets force a common wage but don't set the level. Policies favouring capital and international corporations already tell us the answer -- a very low level. Wages are sticky -- that just means they tend to stagnate rather than drop and we have experienced that for 30+ years. We are at a tipping point where quality of life for our children is likely to be worse rather than better.

Only elites in ivory towers are willing to look 30+ years of stagnation in the face and stick to absurd idealized models. When you complain you get called a populist. Enough is enough. Admit that globalization locally makes inquality worse and come up with policy suggestions that fix that before you try to sell more trade liberalization. Read more

"...people who happen, through no choice of their own, to be living in poverty...."

So it now all comes down to luck whether someone lives in rich or poor country. Europeans, Americans, Japanese, Koreans are just lucky to be born in their countries, while Africans and muslims are not. I only have one simple question to ask: Who has built Europe, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea etc? Martians? Oh yes, i now understand how it works. Aliens descended from the sky and built Europe, US, Japan etc, but somehow they forgot to develop Africa, India, muslims world. Then they left unexpectedly without a trace leaving behind. And now, either you are lucky and be born in rich world, or unlucky and be born in poor contry.

Nobel Price lauretate, really?

OR, maybe, just maybe, Europe, US, Canada, Japan ... are rich because europeans, americans, canadians, japanese etc have built them up? And maybe, just maybe, Africa is poor because africans have not built anything in last hundreds and thousands of years?

Maybe, just maybe, Robert Shiller should be promoting responsibility, instead of moral relativism. Maybe? Read more

@ John Reid, you need to remember that currently there are 6 billion people living in developing countries vs 1 billion in rich countries. If you want to solve their poverty by moving them in rich countries, we will be on the same level pretty soon, indeed. Poor.

Interesting and i thought that capitalism won the cold war, now everywhere i read about sharing the wealth. Karl Marx is the winner. Personal and national responsibility be damned. Why would Africa or Asia develop their countries when they can all move to Europe or North America and share their wealth. Problem solved. Read more

@Peter Lintner, you need to remember that our current shared wealth is a relatively recent phenomenon. Bringing those currently poor up to the level we both enjoy now is good ethics, but it also avoids trouble; if we share there will be less trouble than is likely to occur if we do not.

So esentially what the author, and you, are saying is that we should never inherit anything, because it´s fundamentally unfair. Each country should be flattened every 25 years, so that the new generation doesnt get anything it never worked for, which is "obviously" unfair. It should prove itself and build the country anew again on its own.

Sure enough, Im all for freedom of thought and variety of opinions, but personally, i dont think nihilism and anarchy is the way forward.

I respect your opinion though, even if i completely disagree. Read more

I am fairly sure he understands that Koreans built Korea. What he is saying is that for an individual born in that country he has no part in what happened before he was born. From his perspective it is unfair. Read more

Past grass roots revolutions were powered by conventional weapons, can we allow needed present revolutions with potential access to WMD to operate in their own vacuum's ? The pendalum of change may require some isolation from time to time for security and introspection. Read more

We've become so open minded that our brains have fallen out of our skulls. Why not distribute nuclear weapons equally around the world? Or ak47 assault rifles? Oops we've already done that. Has that worked out very well? Read more

It all comes down to a question of "us" versus "them." Not information revolutions, but global warming will be what first and most powerfully transforms the world's population into "us." No solution seems possible without the participation of all.

I hate to be the one to break the news bit it is an us versus them thing. Unless you have the benefit of a trust fund or a job that can't be shipped to the third world (yet) Or perhaps licensing requirements that keep foreign trained out. Then yes it is an Us versus them thing for every job they ship to Mexico, Malaysia or Vietnam is a job that has gone forever. And you know what? The jobs being left to us don't pay a living wage. Nothing like going from a decent payed job in IT or manufacturing to a job in a nursing home or a Starbuck's to give you a real appreciation for Globalization and the 3rd world. And trust me going back to college at 40 some odd while trying to support a family and hoping you can pay back a student debt that could choke a horse is not a winning. A pretty good chance that you will be working at 85 after they garnish your social security perhaps. But definately not a good bet. Yes it is and for the forseeable future an Us versus them world. It kind of goes with winner take all. Read more

Another globalization puff piece. the great ambition of globalization is not to increase wages or living standards in the third world to first world level but to lower first world living standards to those of Zimbabwe or Vietnam. Congratulations! Your ant-National revolution will be a race to the bottom as leadership becomes even less responsive to non corporate or big donor people. Trade adjustment assistance is and will remain a joke that is not going to change Period!!! The votes aren't their to change it no matter how the election goes in the US the House of Representives won't change hands thus NO TAA changes it won't pass congress. If Europe's handling of Greece Spain and the poorer states is any indication things aren't going any better for the poor there. The revolution you are offering is A very very small percentage of obscenely rich and a whole lot of peasants and peons living hand to mouth for the benefit of handful of winners. You know what I don't want your revolution having been reduced to poverty courtesy of "Globalization" I really really hate your Global revolution. Nothing like being told your job is being shipped to 3rd world where they work for a dollar a day to give you love for "FREE TRADE". Look around for the working class in the "First world" Globalization has been a race to the BOTTOM. We don't want your coming revolution we have already sodomized enough in the name of "GLOBALIZATION" Read more

That is the revolution we have had in recent decades. The result has been a DOW that went from 750 to 18,500 and living standards for the average American (and European) that has gone nowhere.

What the revoluition proved is that the Hayek-dominated world economy with no state is as bad or worse than one in a nation state. The revolution was the dream of the Goldwaterites and anti-government New Left of the 1960s who have ruled the last 30 years. It failed, and as those who were in the twenties from 1997 to 2007 come to power, it will reverse. Let us hope that democracy doesn't disappear in the process. Read more

Would a corollary to wage rate equalization be that the most populous nations would become the most wealthy ones? If so I would expect all but the largest nations (that is, all except for China, India) to fight this process tooth and nail. Read more

The evolution process wasn't so peaceful; actually it was all but peaceful and required many to give their lives in order to change the status-quo.

The French and American revolutions, Napoleonic wars, Garibaldi, Bolivar, etc, etc. The Liberal vs Reactionary wars in almost all countries in Europe. Everything comes with a cost, so expect a war between the North and the SouthRead more

Rather Panglossian. Especially considering that the global elites are disregarding the interests of their own natural constituencies, i.e. Frau Merkel cramming 'the refugees ' into an unwilling nation, or even attempting to deceive or trick them, i.e. 'Project Fear ' . What can we say about elites imposing a dangerous Fantasy? Chamberlain? Zardoz? Read more

PS On Air: The Super Germ Threat

NOV 2, 2016

In the latest edition of PS On
Air
, Jim O’Neill discusses how to beat antimicrobial resistance, which
threatens millions of lives, with Gavekal Dragonomics’ Anatole Kaletsky
and Leonardo Maisano of
Il Sole 24 Ore.

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